Experienced a 5.2 magnitude earthquake today in the office. I didn’t feel it though because there’s some building construction going on on the ground floor that’s making the entire building shake the whole day. On a brighter note, it’s a good thing that no one was hurt and no property was destroyed.

Let’s be real here, most Filipinos today don’t even know the value of Independence day anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m one of those people who don’t think much about Independence day as well, not until this Independence weekend. I was spending the weekend at the condo of one of my bandmates and, while surfing through the channels on the television came across the movie Jose Rizal on GMA 7. It starred Cesar Montano and a wide array of famous Filipino celebrities.

I never really enjoyed home grown movies but I found myself stuck and watching the story of Philippines’ National Hero. It was really weird because I was watching what I used to sleep on during my high school days. History was never one of my favorite subjects.

For the first time I guess, I saw the oppression we went through during the time of the Spaniards. It was also a treat to see Crisostomo Ibarra / Simoun come to life thanks to actor Joel Torre who did the character justice. There I saw the passion and frustrations of Jose Rizal while fighting to free us from the grips of the Spaniards.

It’s a shame that most, if not all Filipinos have forgotten what our forefathers did to get our Independence. Now I call on all Filipinos to once again fight for Independence, not from foreign oppression, not from outside threats, but Independence from our corrupt and greedy government officials. Too long have our country been in the jaws of leaders who only think of their welfare.

Too long have these officials enjoyed the good life at our expense. For us to be truly free, we need to change the system to a system that works not only for those who hold power, but for everyone. Let’s make our Independence day mean something again.

Slipknot wasn’t one of my favorite bands, but their music changed the way I look at metal and the way I play. I was quite surprised to hear the news that their bassist Paul Gray was found dead in his hotel room at the age of 38. There was no evidence of foul play and toxicologists are still to release a report. Paul wasn’t the most flashiest metal bass player around, but what he gave to Slipknot was a distinct sound which gave the band their identity.

I only have a couple of Slipknot songs in my mp3 player, but those were the songs that made me realize how good and creative Slipknot is as a band and as musicians. If you go to Slipknot’s official site you can see that the first page is dedicated to Paul. There’s still no news from the band what their plans are, but let’s hope that they will continue to rock our socks off, I’m sure that’s what Paul would want.

Well it looks like that the present Philippine President has been on a spending spree going in and out of the country. I was so disgusted when I saw the news today saying that all the expenses that she wasted from 2001 to 2009 didn’t really matter. Hello? didn’t matter? I guess it doesn’t matter for her because she’s up there spending and wasting a good part of the tax payers money on all of those stupid international trips. What the hell is she thinking? Those funds could’ve been used for some project to help the homeless and street kids make something out of their lives, but she would rather dine in some expensive restaurant outside the country. Doesn’t she get stomach cramps when she thinks of how she’s blowing away all that money for senseless drivel? I guess not because if it did, then she would’ve stopped country hopping and started focusing on our country’s problems.

It’s funny… I have to admit that even though I try to avoid it I keep searching for it at the same time. Now that it’s here I’m not really sure what I should be doing because it’s driving me insane. What am I talking about? I’m talking about LOVE of course. I consider myself very unlucky when it comes to love that’s why I try to avoid it as much as possible because I almost always end up as a torn up, love struck idiot by the gutter and it’s not one of the best feelings believe me. However I found myself at the throws of love’s arms once again when I met this girl a few weeks back. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as love at first sight but I was totally taken when I glanced in her eyes.

Being a toy collector, toy conventions are always a good place to look for good deals and hard to find toys and me and my officemates were really excited for this years ToyCon. Thinking back to the success of last year’s ToyCon I was really expecting this year’s ToyCon to be even more kick ass than last year. However, I was a bit disappointed and at the same time happy that I didn’t find any great toys today because it did help me keep my savings account fat and healthy. On the other hand I was really expecting to find a toy that would really beckon me to pull my ATM card out of my wallet and withdraw a healthy lump of cash for a toy that I couldn’t resist buying.

And of course who could forget the Cosplayers? ToyCons are never complete without these hardcore Otakus who parade their favorite characters with homemade costumes that are both amazing and sometimes painful on the eyes. I’m trying to be mean here but let’s face it, some of those costumes are not even worth a second look. But this year’s ToyCon did boast a lot of amazing Cosplayers that I found really impressive. A couple of my favorites were the Ranma 1/2 costumes, a hot Morrigan cosplayer, just browse through the pictures and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Here in the Philippines we rarely get any freak weather phenomenon, and it’s a really big surprise if we did. Well, that surprise sure did happened yesterday at Manila Bay. People were both alarmed and amazed at this spectacle, which lasted about a couple of minutes. I was amazed and at the same time scared when I saw this. It was a good thing that the waterspout remained over water and didn’t decide to move to populated areas where it could’ve been catastrophic. It’s funny that this didn’t make the news last night, I guess people are still busy with all the Hayden Kho shit.

But this is something we shouldn’t take lightly. This kind of abnormal weather phenomenon is the effects of global warming and if we don’t do anything about it soon we may be seeing more than just waterspouts springing out of the wood work.